The concept of “microclimate” combines such characteristics of the room as air temperature, humidity level, sound insulation and lighting level. A comfortable microclimate implies compliance with all these indicators sanitary standards.
Air temperature
Optimal room temperature, comfortable for humans, is 20-22 degrees Celsius. Exactly like this temperature regime recommended for residential premises. In the office or at work, the temperature should not be lower than 18 or higher than 24 degrees. In different rooms, the temperature can fluctuate with a difference of 3-4 degrees. Air conditioners, split systems and heating devices will help you set the appropriate temperature level. It is very important to ensure high-quality thermal insulation during the construction of a building. Thermal insulation materials, as well as the tightness of door and window openings, will allow you to maintain the set temperature in the room regardless of weather conditions.
Since only five degrees can separate one zone from the next, temperature fluctuations in your garden can compensate for this deficiency. Re-evaluating your property based on its microclimates can take parts of your garden into a new zone, as well as a whole new world of planting possibilities.
Buildings and residences such as driveways, patios and fences tend to bring warm nights to neighboring areas. White walls or fences reflect light and heat during the day, while darker colors tend to absorb heat and release it as temperatures drop. On the other hand, elevated spaces such as decks and patios may be colder than usual, especially when it is windy. Low-lying areas in the garden may also be colder than expected. Cold air is heavier than warmer air and tends to pool in depressions and down spots.
Optimal air humidity
The air humidity level should be about 40-60%. With a lower humidity level, a person feels discomfort, dry skin and mucous membranes of the respiratory tract appear. High humidity is even more uncomfortable. With high humidity, the air temperature is perceived differently, the person becomes hot, stuffy, breathing becomes difficult and the heartbeat quickens. Besides, high humidity- a real enemy of furniture and decoration. Many materials cannot withstand humidity and swell and crack. Besides, increased level Humidity promotes the development of mold, mildew and pathogens.
Although temperature can be an important factor in microclimate analysis, it is not the only consideration. Microclimates can be large or small and can involve elements working alone or in combination to change the prevailing conditions in parts of the garden. Let's look at the most important factors to consider when determining the microclimate.
Proximity to large buildings, roads, and other urban features that retain heat can increase temperatures environment. Lakes may exert some significant cooling, and less noticeable cooling may occur as spray passes through rivers, streams, and large ponds. Thermal features - Cabins such as driveways, walls, fences, decks and patios tend to keep surrounding areas warmer at night. Windbreaks are enclosed areas, somewhat protected from damaging wind and rain, and are more moderate than the surrounding landscapes. Orientation - The direction of your property, based on compass points, affects the temperature. Shadow production features - Buildings and trees can create pools or bands of shade relative to their directional orientation. Topography. Surface properties of your property, such as depressions where water pools and freeze, or hilly areas that are vulnerable to windy conditions or moisture loss in hot weather, can create microclimates. Soil conditions. The composition of the soil in different parts of the garden, such as mulch that provides insulation or compacted soil that retains heat, affects temperature.
- Urban development.
- Proximity to water.
To increase humidity in residential or production premises you can install aquariums or indoor fountains. There are also special devices - air humidifiers. Some indoor plants. Excess moisture is much more difficult to deal with. During construction or renovation, it is necessary to use high-quality moisture-proofing materials. Proper arrangement of the air ventilation system will also help.
What is the microclimate of a living space?
Think of yourself as a realtor with a nerdy bent. What's the first rule of real estate? Your job is to first identify the microclimates in your landscape and then combine them with plants that can benefit from their unique advantages.
Your home is probably one of the largest shadow producers in your garden. At different times of the year it casts a larger, smaller, stronger or weaker shadow based on its directional orientation and the elevation of the sun throughout the seasons. Understanding where and when that shade will fall can be a valuable tool in maximizing or minimizing sun exposure for your plants. Using shadow creatively can be a subtle but important trick. For example, morning light and afternoon shade can help keep cilantro and dill from chattering just as quickly, and can make it easier to keep lettuce and spinach outdoors in the summer.
Light mode
The level of room lighting is another important factor for creating a comfortable microclimate. It is very important that natural sunlight enters the room during the day. If the room is dark, fluorescent lamps and an ultraviolet lamp are installed in it, which must be used regularly. Ultraviolet rays in moderate doses have a beneficial effect on the health of humans, pets and indoor plants.
Those wet, somewhat boggy spots around your savior may not be the best place for lavender, but it may be ideal for mint, especially if you provide better drainage with soil amendments. That hot, dry area next to your garage, the one that receives bright daylight and a lot of reflected heat from your concrete driveway, may be a terrible home for lawn grass, but may be the best spot on your property for globe amaranth or cosmos.
You may already realize that the southern hill behind your house is hot, dry and not very comfortable. However, other areas of your garden may be more difficult to assess. There are a number of tests you can perform to analyze temperature extremes, available sunlight, and soil conditions in different areas of your property. You'll get useful results immediately from soil and sun tests, but the big win is assessing your garden over several seasons to get a full microclimate profile.
Soundproofing
Comfortable rest or productive work is only possible in a room that is reliably protected from extraneous sounds. Therefore, the use of soundproofing materials in the construction of any building is extremely important. You can use soundproofing panels or plaster when repairing or finishing. Hermetically sealed door and window openings also improve sound insulation, helping to create a comfortable microclimate.
This involves weekly testing and some recording, but it's worth it. The first step is to select areas of the garden to evaluate. This can be as simple as treating your front, side, and back yards as independent locations, or exploring high-lying, windward, or low-lying areas separately. Based on the information above, you probably already know which spaces you want to look at individually.
While you can gain a lot of information by observing what's happening and taking the time to position and move a simple thermometer around your landscape to track temperature changes, there are tools that can make the climate testing phase easier and more productive.
Under microclimate understand the prevailing climatic conditions (parameters) in the limited space of buildings
protected ground or in a relatively isolated garden area. This term is especially suitable for small greenhouses.
Included microclimate includes air and soil temperature, their humidity, illumination, air movement and its composition. When growing greenhouse crops begin to take an active part in maintaining and changing the microclimate, it is called the term “phytoclimate”.
External thermometers Soil thermometers and meters Moisture meters Pressure gauges Wind sensors. Multitasking tools are also available that can collect more than one type of information. One of them is a weather station that can monitor weather conditions from multiple probes located around your garden. Data is transmitted wirelessly to internal equipment, eliminating the need for manual testing in inclement weather or at night. While data tracking features vary depending on the manufacturer and model you choose, some weather stations will monitor temperature, wind speed and direction, precipitation, and humidity.
Greenhouse microclimate cannot be permanent. It changes during the growing season of crops (according to the seasons), with the change of day and night, in sunny and cloudy weather, and from ventilation of the structure. Different crops require their own optimized microclimate parameters.
The air temperature in the greenhouse begins to rise from the night level on sunny days with the penetration of the first rays until the first one or two afternoon hours, may remain at the same level for some time, then begins to slowly decrease. At sunset the temperature level is higher than at sunrise.
It is quite easy to understand that a few small changes can lead to a microclimate. Perhaps the idea of creating a completely new microclimate arose. Once you understand what's going on in the garden, you can use your current microclimates creatively and even create new ones. Microclimates offer improved variety in the garden, and understanding them can help you avoid planting mistakes that lead to unnecessary wastage. What you learn will even answer lingering questions you may have about why some plants thrive in your landscape and others don't.
On cloudy days the temperature can be almost constant from morning to evening. In rainy weather, often due to cool streams washing the roof and walls, the temperature can drop to the outside temperature.
In sunny weather, film greenhouses are subject to greater temperature fluctuations between day and night. Heating from the sun's rays during the day, the volume of the greenhouse significantly loses heat at night due to its loss through the film.
Armed with good information, you can start growing a better garden outdoors, just like you grow great seedlings indoors. The placement and layout of the site and then landscaping can improve the microclimate around the building by taking advantage of existing topographical features, adjacent buildings and vegetation for sun protection. Good site layout can also benefit local breezes more by creating an air funnel, as well as promote natural ventilation by stunning the building layout.
Glazed greenhouses are less susceptible to temperature fluctuations, since glass retains heat inside, as well as with reliable sealing of the structure.
The best thermal regime is established in the presence of mature plants and with increased air space between the tops of the plants and the roof of the greenhouse (“buffer zone”).
The presence of water and vegetation in the area can also be used for natural cooling. Good site layout can significantly reduce cooling loads by optimizing natural solar protection and local breezes. For example, east-west oriented streets can help reduce summer solar gain on south-facing facades. Spaced layouts can improve natural ventilation. Proper placement of a building can provide good conditions comfort in the building, and also significantly reduce energy costs.
The night air temperature cannot fall below the outside temperature, and on warm nights it can be higher than the outside temperature.
Bioheating of a greenhouse, of course, best optimizes the temperature regime, preventing drops to critical lower values for crops.
With bioheating, you don’t have to worry about the thermal parameters of the soil. Plants, covering the area of the soil with leaf cover, contribute to their stabilization (constant temperature day and night). Prolonged cloudy weather reduces ground temperature, often significantly. It can be difficult to raise it back to its previous level.
Landscaping can improve microclimates in both summer and winter by providing shading, evaporative cooling, and wind drainage in summer or shelter in winter. Vegetation absorbs large amounts of solar radiation in the summer, helping to keep the air and ground cool, while evapotranspiration can lower temperatures further.
Using shade from trees, shrubs and vines can provide protection from solar radiation in the summer. Careful planting of wind channel trees can provide effective ventilation and circulation of summer breezes in addition to creating attractive spaces for outdoor activities. However, care must be taken when selecting and placing plant cover on or near a building to avoid structural damage.
Air humidity is maintained by watering plants, spraying water over structures, and evaporation from the surface of the soil and plant leaves. In film greenhouses it is often higher due to better sealing. Relative humidity rises with every drop in temperature and vice versa.
Soil moisture is best maintained by constant frequency of watering, the doses of which should vary in accordance with the age, condition of the plants and weather conditions.
Grass and other ground cover can also influence microclimate, keeping the ground temperature cooler than most hard surfaces through evapotranspiration and their ability to reduce the effect of solar radiation. This is due to the shading provided by the grass, which prevents radiation from reaching the ground, resulting in a difference of up to 25 degrees Fahrenheit between asphalt and lawn.
Windbreakers can increase the air pressure difference around buildings and improve cross ventilation. For example, hedging allows soft breezes to filter through foliage while brickwork can create a calm, protected area behind it. Gaps in wind branches, holes between buildings, or openings between the ground and tree canopy can create wind channels, increasing wind speed by about 20%.
The temperature and humidity of the greenhouse air are largely maintained by ventilation (ventilation) modes. It is unacceptable to not ventilate the greenhouse for a long time on sunny days when excess moisture settles on its walls at night, visible from the outside as a solid white coating, and also appears as drops from the roof. These phenomena are a direct path to plant damage by fungal diseases, if the infection is present nearby outside the greenhouse, or mass disease of crops if there are pathogenic foci inside.
Water can also be used effectively to cool both indoor and outdoor environments. Ponds, streams, fountains, sprays and cascades can be used where water is available in the summer. They are particularly effective in dry conditions where levels relative humidity low.
The orientation of the building on site is very important to achieve heat reduction and improve air circulation and ventilation. The main openings in the building envelope should be placed on the North, while the South face should be adequately protected from heat gain by shade devices or vegetation. When determining the position and size of the openings, the prevailing wind direction must be taken into account to ensure proper cross ventilation. This can have a significant impact on improving the comfortable conditions inside the building.
On hot days, the greenhouse should be open for long periods of the day, or even around the clock, especially for tomatoes. On cloudy and cool days, short-term ventilation is possible if it helps remove excess moisture.
But ventilation of greenhouses is partly negative consequence, removing (taking away from plants) carbon dioxide and reducing its concentration. Although with new portions of air come new portions of carbon dioxide, but at a natural level. At the same time, plants may not significantly reduce photosynthesis.
The increased level of carbon dioxide in the greenhouse (within ten times the natural background) serves not only as aerial food for plants, but also as a means of maintaining thermal conditions. The greenhouse effect in the atmosphere is known to be formed by carbon dioxide.
Good light conditions are needed in a greenhouse in all cases. If intense illumination sometimes causes overheating of plant leaves (usually cucumbers), then it also stimulates photosynthesis at low outside temperatures.
To create better light conditions for plants, the use of less shading greenhouse designs, the choice of location on the site, plant placement patterns, and pruning techniques are aimed at creating better light conditions for plants.
With a general decrease in light levels in all greenhouses compared to open ground, which is facilitated by the covering materials and the level of their contamination during operation, there is always more light in film greenhouses than in glazed ones.
Greenhouse microclimate will never be favorable to cultures without constant shaping by man.
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